Google To Offer Free 5GB Of Cloud Space (25th April, 2012)
Google has entered the market for offering online storage space. Their new service, called Google Drive, will be in direct competition with rival (คู่แข่ง) cloud storage services like Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud and Microsoft’s SkyDrive. The search giant will offer 5GB (gigabytes) of storage for free for those wishing to keep their photos, documents and other files online. Keeping things in the cloud means users can access their files from any computer anywhere in the world, as long as it has Internet access. At the top end, Google will offer 16TB (terabytes) of space – at a price of $799.99 a month. Sixteen terabytes is sufficient to store 16,000 movies. For most people, the free 5GB option will be more than enough space.
Google senior vice-president of apps Sundar Pichai said the launch of Drive was an important step for the company. He wrote on a blog post: “Drive is a central place where you can create, share, collaborate and keep all of your stuff. You can take all your data, regardless (ไม่คำนึงถึง) of which device you’re on, and make it seamlessly available to you.” Some industry insiders believe Google’s entry into the cloud storage market could shake it up. Richard Edwards, an analyst at the research firm Ovum, said Google’s move could stir Facebook into action. “Facebook doesn’t have a cloud service but this may prompt it into an acquisition (การเข้าครอบครอง) ,” he said. He added: “If Facebook was to buy Dropbox, that would be a game-changer.”
